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February 16, 2016

[Holding the meeting here, officials said, was meant to confer the same sense of privilege on the Asian leaders that Mr. Obama lavished on Mr. Xi. But experts on the region said many of the leaders would have preferred a visit to the White House. Sunnylands is so identified with the Obama-Xi meeting that it also serves as a reminder of how much America’s relations with Asia are dominated by China.]

RANCHO MIRAGE, Calif. —President
Obamawelcomed the
leaders of 10 Southeast Asian countries to this desert oasis for a summit
meeting on Monday, giving him another chance to shine a spotlight on one of his
most ambitious geopolitical projects: the “pivot” to Asia.

White
House officials doggedly promoted the importance of the day-and-a-half meeting,
which is the first time the leaders of theAssociation of Southeast Asian Nations, orAsean, have gathered in the United States. Mr. Obama laid out a full agenda of
economic and security issues for his guests, led by the tensions with China over itsaggressive reclamation of
landon disputed reefs
and islands in the South
China Sea.

“At
this summit, we can advance our shared vision of a regional order where rules
and norms, including freedom of navigation, are upheld, and where disputes are
resolved through peaceful, legal means,” Mr. Obama said at Sunnylands, a
sprawling estate built by the publisher Walter H. Annenberg. Susan E. Rice, the
national security adviser, said the United States would work with the leaders on a statement
affirming those principles.

But the nations are divided over how hard to
push back on China. Maritime countries like the Philippines, Vietnam and Malaysia, which see China as threatening their sovereignty, favor a
more aggressive approach. Other nations, like Cambodia and Laos, which have close trade ties with China, are reluctant to risk an open
confrontation. That divide is likely to play out in the statement, which will
probably embrace broad principles but avoid specific references to Beijing.

In meetings at Sunnylands, a tieless Mr.
Obama was aiming for the same intimacy and informality he sought, with mixed
results, when he welcomed PresidentXi Jinpingof China to the estate in 2013 for what officials
called a “shirt-sleeves summit.”

Holding the meeting here, officials said, was
meant to confer the same sense of privilege on the Asian leaders that Mr. Obama
lavished on Mr. Xi. But experts on the region said many of the leaders would
have preferred a visit to the White House. Sunnylands is so identified with the
Obama-Xi meeting that it also serves as a reminder of how much America’s relations with Asia are dominated by China.

“The
South China Sea is still the dominant story,” said Jeffrey
A. Bader, a former senior adviser to Mr. Obama on Asia. “This will be a taking of the temperature
of the Southeast Asians, especially the key claimants: Malaysia, Philippines, Vietnam.”

“What do they want out of the United States?” Mr. Bader asked. “Are they happy with what
the U.S. has been doing over the last few years?
Would they like to see a more robust approach? Or are they uneasy about a
U.S.-China confrontation?”

China recently conducted test landings on a nearly
10,000-foot runway that it built on reclaimed land on Fiery Cross Reef, in a
disputed part of the sea. That raised the hackles of the Philippines, which fears that China might try to control the airspace over that
land by declaring an “air defense identification zone,” as it did in 2013 in
the East China Sea.

Several of the countries are undergoing
delicate political transitions, which led to one high-profile no-show. Myanmar’s president, Thein Sein, stayed home to
oversee the transitionfrom a military-led government to one
led by the pro-democracy party of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. While his absence
deprives Mr. Obama of the chance to celebrate his opening to Myanmar, administration officials said the orderly
transfer of power vindicated his efforts.

White
House officials were relieved that Vietnam’s prime minister, Nguyen Tan Dung, decided
to attend after reports that he would send a deputy in his place.

But
several leaders brought unsavory reputations with them. Prime Minister Prayuth
Chan-ocha of Thailand seized powerin a coupin May 2014. Prime Minister Hun Sen of
Cambodia has ruled with an iron hand since 1985. When
Cambodian-Americans began organizing protests timed to his visit, he warned
that pro-government forces would carry out demonstrations against the political
opposition at home.

“We
reject that type of effort to intimidate, and have similarly expressed concern
over threats made to opposition figures inside the country,” said Benjamin J.
Rhodes, the deputy national security adviser. On Monday morning, a few hundred
people gathered in a parking lot to protest several of the leaders.

At
the manicured resort, where many of the delegations are staying, Vietnamese and
other Asian officials wandered the palm-fringed grounds, gazing at the
vacationing golfers. Mr. Obama squeezed in a last round at Sunnylands on Monday
morning with three high school friends.

In 2014, he golfed in Hawaii with Prime Minister Najib Razak of Malaysia. Mr. Najib is at Sunnylands, but he did not get
an invitation this time. He has been the target of corruption investigations
after nearly $700 million ended up in his personal bank accounts. The Malaysian
government, noting that he had returned $620 million of the money to the Saudi
royal family, closed its investigation in January.